Bent Legs in a Rear Facing Seat

Are you wondering if your child’s bent legs in their rear-facing seat are uncomfortable?

You can relax knowing that it is unlikely that this is the case.  But let’s look into it further.

It’s useful to start by remembering why a child is in a rear-facing position.  

It’s safer for a child to travel rear-facing as it provides vital support to their head, neck and spine in a crash.  They do not get this when they are forward-facing.

When we see a child sitting in a rear-facing seat with their legs bent, as adults, we consider what that would feel like for us. It may well be uncomfortable for an adult to sit in that position for a while, but children are not small adults.  Their bone structure is different, and they are far more flexible than we are. So they will not feel the same effects as an adult would when sitting in that position.

Some children rear-face until they are 5-6 years old.  At this age, they can communicate if they are uncomfortable or not, and this is very rarely the case.

If we decided to remove the risk of discomfort from bent legs, to do so, we would have to move the child into a forward-facing position.  By doing this, we have removed a “perceived” risk of discomfort to their legs but replaced it with a “proven” risk of severe head, neck and spine injuries.

It doesn’t make sense to do this, especially when it is unlikely they are uncomfortable in the first place.

It’s best practice to keep children rear-facing until they have outgrown the rear-facing limits of their child restraint.

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